MADURAI: Lamenting that money power and influence have spoiled society and even educational institutions have become rotten to the core, threatening to collapse the faith of the common man in the system, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court has directed the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to ensure that the investigation into issuance of fake degree certificates to candidates by the Madurai Kamaraj University (MKU) reaches its logical end.
The DVAC should also probe similar issues in other universities and initiate action against the candidates and officials involved, without any further delay, the court said, adding that the role played by the study centres of the universities should also be looked into. Further, the court directed the universities to cancel degrees of candidates who engaged in the fraudulent activity.
Noting that the investigation faced huge delay due to non-cooperation of the varsities in providing the required documents, the judges told DVAC to initiate criminal prosecution under Section 238 of the BNS against officials concerned.
A bench of justices P Velmurugan and B Pugalendhi issued the directions on June 5, while temporarily closing a contempt petition filed by G Sakthi Rao of Madurai over non-compliance of a judgment passed by the Court on March 22, 2021 that only candidates who studied in Tamil medium should be considered eligible for PSTM (Persons Studied in Tamil Medium) reservation.
In the judgment, which was passed in a petition filed by Rao in 2020 alleging irregularities in appointments made by TNPSC under PSTM reservation in Group I posts, the court noted that majority of candidates who were appointed under the category had completed schooling in English medium and later obtained the qualifying degrees alone in Tamil medium through distance education just to avail of the quota.
The court had also raised doubts about the genuineness of such degree certificates. Since DVAC was probing fake certificate scam in MKU, the court instructed the director of the agency to constitute a special team headed by a DSP-level officer to probe into the problem of fake certificates, including PSTM certificates, issued by MKU and file periodical status reports.
The investigation revealed that four candidates had obtained fake PSTM certificates from MKU and got appointments in Group I posts and that 22 candidates might have obtained fake certificates from Annamalai University, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Periyar University and Madras University, prompting the court to order DVAC to probe the varsities also.
But the bench recently observed that even after the court passed as many as 17 orders to ensure compliance of the 2021 judgment, DVAC officials were yet to conclude the investigation due to non-cooperation by various stakeholders, including the unnecessary wait for obtaining prior sanction which was not even required in the first place. Though there is a clear case of contempt of court's directions, considering that the DVAC investigation is still underway, the judges decided to close the contempt proceedings for the time being with the above directions.